Psy, Seoul, and Snowflakes.

As usual, it has been too long since I’ve updated. Life hasn’t consisted of anything too exciting recently. I feel like most of my free time is spent food shopping, preparing said food, or thinking about what food I’m going to buy on my next shopping trip. I’m pretty sure thinking about food (whether it’s finding, buying, cooking, baking, wishing for, etc.) takes up way too much of my daily life. (Is that even possible?)

Other than that, the only other thing I’ve been thinking about is how to stay warm, now that the temperature has dropped and Gwangju is getting cold again. We saw our first snowfall this past monday, although it was more sleet and rain than soft, fluffy snowflakes. Still, it was nice to watch out the window with the students, whose excitement was only matched by that of the Korean teachers in the office.

There are some fun things have happened over the last six weeks, though. Toward the end of October, ECC had a Halloween party for the kids, and teachers were asked to dress in costume. I originally wanted to go as Pikachu, but a shady eBay seller from Hong Kong ruined that dream, so I threw a very last minute costume together, which, interestingly enough, consisted of almost exactly the same stuff I wore last year. I’ll give you one chance to guess who I was before the big reveal:

That’s right–Psy! Sure, none of the kids knew who I was until I did the horse dance, but it worked in a pinch. As you can see, I was in good company; we had Cheryl, who was a K-Pop star from one of the most recent hits by the group Crayon POP, Adele, aka Hermione Granger, Joel and Jessica as anime characters, Ben as Jack Skellington, Jack as the Incredible Hulk, and Nathaniel as Iron Man. Jack even won some money from our director for having the best costume. ^_^

Besides dressing up, we got to play games with the students, go trick-or-treating from classroom to classroom, watch Halloween movies, and a bunch of other fun stuff. Here are a few of my favorite photos from the day.

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November brought some absolutely gorgeous foliage, which I took advantage of by hiking Mt. Mudeung with my friends Iris and Dr. Kim. We rode a chairlift halfway up the mountain (which I didn’t even know existed and thought was super ingenious) and then hiked from there. It was a lovely day out. I’ll let the photos speak for themselves.

The rest of the month consisted of celebrating Jack’s 24th birthday (<3!), taking a weekend trip to Seoul, going on a field trip with ECC kindergarteners to watch The Little Match Girl, and seeing a second, more proper snowfall this last week. Hover over the thumbnails for the captions, or click them to see higher quality versions. 🙂

Jack’s homemade birthday cake, made by yours truly. 🙂

Yet another chocolate cake for the birthday boy from our friends Tessa and Erin!

Two of our most special friends who have been with us from the beginning.

The night got pretty wild with a game of Asshole at Tequilaz.

Ben and Adele’s first noraebang experience!

Jack’s friend Regan took us to a cafe in Seoul where sheep roam around the tables.

This incredible waffle was my breakfast. ^_^

Sneaking a feelski.

Not impressed.

FC Seoul vs. Incheon — our first soccer game in Korea that wasn’t a bore to watch!

Some of ECC’s kindergarteners getting a quick pic with the crew of The Little Match Girl.

Young love.

Best friends!

Karl and Sam. Such cuties.

Max really didn’t want his photo taken. Thankfully, Sophie stepped in in the nick of time.

Tiffany, beautiful as ever.

This auditorium was overrun by children!

The first proper snow fall of the season!

Our street. 🙂

These girls get me through the week.

We made hand turkeys!

Work makes the weeks go quickly. I am particularly excited today because we are going to celebrate Thanksgiving with our friends with a proper turkey, mashed potatoes, and green bean casserole! Will be sure to update tomorrow with pictures of the spread (’cause ya can’t have Turkey Day without pictures of all the food!). Until then, please enjoy this video of Eileen, Jenny, and Haana wishing you all a Happy…Thanksgiving?